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Christ, this was going to be bad.
Her throat worked on a thick swallow, those golden eyes growing distant and glassy as she recalled the memory. “They locked me in a closet saying I had to stay in there and repentfor my sins, that they wouldn’t let me out until God had forgiven me.”
I hadn’t thought my stomach could sink any lower, but the bottom fell out and it dropped like a lead balloon to my feet.
“I was in there for three days. They wouldn’t allow me food or water. I couldn’t even come out to”—her voice hitched—“to go to the bathroom. There wasn’t even a light.” She breathed deeply, her chest expanding as she filled her lungs. “It was so dark,” she said on a pained whisper.
“Jesus, Deva,” I breathed, the rage coiling inside of me swelling so big it felt like there wasn’t room for anything else. I wanted to find the people who’d done that to her and make them pay. I wanted to exact revenge twice as painful as what they’d meted out on this innocent woman’s behalf. “Where were your parents? Why didn’t they stop this?”
Instead of giving me shit for skipping her turn, she answered, killing me slowly with every word she said.
“My mom died when I was really little,” she confessed quietly. “I was so young I don’t have memories of her. I wish I did. I believe those would have been memories I cherished.”
That explained why she was worried about Cash’s mother. I was seeing a whole new side of Deva, and if anything, it made the draw to her that much more intense.
“Raising me on his own was too difficult for my father, so he worked out a deal with the Oakes’s so they’d take me in. A deal I didn’t know about until the day I moved out. I lived with them from the time I was eight years old until...”
Fuck me. “Until you got this job,” I finished for her.
Her reply was a silent nod.
I wanted to kick my own ass in that moment for considering firing her for even a second. This really had been her one and only shot at starting a new life, abetterlife. And I had nearly ruined it for her.
Thank fuck for Myra Montgomery and her big heart.
“What was the deal they worked out?”
I dreaded the answer, but I had to know. I didn’t understand why. Hell, I didn’t even understand my feelings for this woman. I just knew Ihadto know.
The small laugh she let out was brittle and jagged. “Apparently, when he felt the time was right, I was supposed to marry Mathias. Agnes and Sherman’s only son. They took me in because I was to be his future bride.” She shook her head bitterly. “I was only eight years old when my father traded me like a broodmare. I haven’t seen him since. I don’t even know where he is.”
I wanted to find the man and beat him bloody for what he’d done to his daughter. I wanted to make him pay for basically selling her off to horrible people, all because he was too big a pussy to man up to his responsibilities.
Was this single parent gig hard? Hell yeah. It was hard as fuck. But I’d barely had Cash more than a month, and already I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.
The atmosphere in the kitchen was heavy, dark, and I knew it was because Deva’s light had been tamped down by the past. And it was my fault. I wanted to do something to make it better, but I didn’t have the first fucking clue what that was.
“It’s your turn.”
Her head came up, her eyelids blinking as she was pulled back into the present. “Sorry, what?”
“It’s your turn. To ask a question.” I’d have told her anything at that moment. All she had to do was ask.
She shook her head, all that deep, faceted red shining in the sunlight pouring from the kitchen window. “I actually feel a headache coming on. If you don’t mind, I’ll lie down for a bit before Cash wakes up.”
Shit. She was curling in on herself, and it was all my fault.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Thanks.” She graced me with another barely-there smile. “I just need a small nap. I’ll be back to start dinner.”
Then, she turned on her heel, not giving me a chance to say another word, and disappeared to her room, leaving me feeling like I’d just had my chest split wide open.
Chapter
Nineteen
DEVA
